Rasheed Sulaimon is not the sort of athlete whose countenance or physique frightens or intimidates. He is 6-4, 185 pounds, just a typical basketball player’s frame. He has soft, pleasant features and an easy smile.

When he pulls his uniform top over his head and down to his shoulders, though, he becomes a target for animosity. And all that experience playing for D-U-K-E is going to help a lot as he spends the next couple weeks wearing U-S-A across his chest in the FIBA U19 World Championship.

Rasheed Sulaimon has great shooting skills and the ability to drive to the basket, but he's also become a surer ballhandler. (AP Photo)

He has spent just one season with the Blue Devils so far, but that included trips to N.C. State, North Carolina and Maryland, so he pretty much got the full treatment.

When the Terps visited Cameron in late January, Sulaimon smacked them with 6-of-8 long-distance shooting and 25 points in a 20-point Blue Devils blowout. So the Maryland fans were prepared for him when Duke made a return visit two weeks later.

“They think of us as their biggest rivals and everything like that,” Sulaimon told Sporting News. “We had shootaround earlier that morning, and right after shootaround I checked my phone and I had 44 missed calls and 97 text messages. I don’t know how they got my number, but they were threatening me: You better not make a shot, I hope you break your leg … That’s when I first kind of realized what it meant to play for Duke. Everyone wants to beat you.

“If you’re one of the key guys in that program, you’re probably hated by a lot of people.”

It’s a phenomenon he compares to the national antipathy for the Dallas Cowboys. (Sulaimon hates 'em, too, being from Houston and a Texans fan). Sulaimon has talked to former Devils such as J.J. Redick, Mike Dunleavy, Kyle Singler, Kyrie Irving. They all got it some, although Irving’s freshman-year injury spared him the worst of it.

Although Sulaimon expects there’ll be many more Americans adopting him in this tournament, the way LeBron James suddenly shed his villainy in the Olympics last summer, the tournament will be played in Prague, not Pittsburgh. The reality of playing for USA Basketball is to always be the target, particularly when medal play begins.

Coaches and players who’ve competed for the U.S. tell stories of how opponents throw so much into beating the Americans in a quarterfinal or semifinal game they often haven’t much left for subsequent games. Of the past five teams to defeat the U.S. in a world tournament, four lost their next game. The fifth didn’t have another game to play, as that result came in the 2007 U19 title game.

The U.S. has won the U19 title only once since 1995, something the players who tried out for the team were reminded as soon as they assembled. “In every other age group, the USA has dominated—except for this one,” Sulaimon said. That just refocused everyone. We know it’s not going to be a cakewalk—any game over there.”

Sulaimon will be essential to the U.S. because the team is not rich in long-range shooting. There is not a single player who made two 3-pointers per game and shot better than 38 percent from downtown. Sulaimon hit 37.1 percent, 49-of-132, his numbers depressed by a 5-for-26 slump in the final nine games. But he was easily the most comfortable and prolific jump shooter at the U19 trials.

It has been a bit of a journey to reach this point. His personal trainer, Chris Gaston of Houston, told Sporting News that Sulaimon can be a bit headstrong as a player. Sulaimon acknowledged the frustrations that developed naturally from the higher challenges of the collegiate level were vexing at first.

“You might not see what the coaches see. Being a young player, I didn’t kind of see the end goal from the beginning,” Sulaimon said. “But I think the turning point for me was against North Carolina State, our first loss. Right after we lost Ryan Kelly. It was probably one of my worst games of the year. I went 0-for-10, I finished with four points. I had to sit back and look in the mirror. I realized there’s a reason I came here, and that’s to trust the coaches. Once I bought in, my season changed. They started getting more confidence in me, started trusting me more, and I just took my game to another level.”

Sulaimon and Gaston have been working together for years, first meeting in a pickup game that morphed into a competitive one-on-one contest between Gaston, a former collegiate player, and Sulaimon, the young prospect. When they were finished, Gaston told the head varsity coach at Westbury Christian that Sulaimon was going to be a fine player for the varsity that season.

“And he said, ‘Oh, no. He’s only in sixth grade,’ ” Gaston recalled.

Gaston has worked with Sulaimon recently to improve his ballhandling in preparation for a possible move to point guard as he progresses toward the NBA. Sulaimon flashed an impressive handle during the U19 trials, changing direction easily and attacking defenders with either hand. As a freshman at Duke, when he controlled a rebound he would look immediately to off-load the ball to point guard Quinn Cook or Tyler Thornton. Coach Mike Krzyzewski even busted him on that a few times. That isn’t likely to be a problem this season; Sulaimon expects he’ll have some point duties for the Blue Devils.

“Growing up, I was always known as a shooter,” Sulaimon said. “I always felt like I could get to the rack at will as well, but they kind of liked me as a shooter, and I was kind of OK with it because I got the ball whenever I wanted. I definitely think now I am a little bit more confident in it, as well. I want to show what I can do now. I’m not just a shooter.”